Artificial intelligence is accelerating across industries, and AI governance is quickly becoming the defining factor that determines whether enterprises can deploy it at scale with confidence.

The race to integrate digital co-workers and intelligent agents isn’t just about speed or automation anymore — it’s about trust. Organizations are realizing that innovation without governance introduces risks around compliance, security and data integrity. At the same time, governance frameworks are giving enterprises a way to embrace AI with agility, ensuring that deployments deliver measurable value while maintaining accountability. This balance of speed and control is shaping the next wave of enterprise transformation, according to Carter Busse (pictured, right), chief information officer of Workato Inc.

Workato’s Carter Busse discusses how Workato embeds AI governance into its agentic AI platform.

“We have this in amazing framework methodology that goes along with our product. It’s called GEARS: Govern, Enable, Adopt, Run, Scale,” Busse said. “It’s a methodology we use not just for Workato, but other technologies, rolling it out with the business.”

Busse and Stephanie Dwight (left), vice president of business technology at Workato, spoke with theCUBE’s Savannah Peterson and Rob Strechay at the WOW: World of Workato event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how Workato embeds AI governance into its agentic AI platform to ensure security, trust and rapid enterprise adoption. (* Disclosure below.)

Building trust with AI governance

Enterprises adopting AI agents are grappling with a familiar tension: how to move fast while maintaining security, compliance and trust. That’s why governance has become a central thread in the deployment of Workato’s Genies — the company’s branded digital co-workers. With governance built into the platform since its inception, Workato is making a case for confidence in automation, according to Busse.

“Our Genie Secure is actually built on their product from day one. It’s been there for 13 years,” he said. “You can turn those knobs and dials within the product. That’s not new with our agent offering. We have thousands of customers using us as a data superhighway … governance has already been there. We’ve been around for quite a while doing integration, data orchestration. It’s such a natural movement for us to get into this new agent world.”

The speed of deployment is another differentiator. Unlike traditional enterprise software rollouts that take months or years, Workato’s approach allows for new AI-powered agents to be up and running in weeks. This rapid delivery helps teams capture ROI more quickly, while governance features provide assurance to business and IT leaders, Dwight explained.

“It’s all about enabling our business users to build,” she said. “We’re a small and mighty team, and we can only do so much. The brilliant thing about Workato is that anyone can build, whether it’s an automation or what we’re talking about today is genius.”

This dynamic has already shown results inside Workato itself. Teams are reporting measurable productivity gains and cost savings, such as licensing optimization that frees up budget and removes tedious manual oversight. For leaders, it’s a model of how AI governance can be embedded seamlessly into innovation.

“It goes back to technology,” Busse added. “You let AI define a Genie for you, and you give it a job description … it just starts working. It’s how quickly you can build this technology. It’s not you’re doing the requirements gathering, you’re defining a business process. You’re defining the end state. You map it together and it builds this Genie.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the WOW: World of Workato event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the WOW: World of Workato event. Neither Workato Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE